WHO warns Congo Ebola outbreak may be four times larger
WHO says Congo’s Ebola outbreak may be two to four times larger than the official count, with most new cases still outside known contact chains.
Government data released Thursday put Congo’s Ebola outbreak at 1,792 infections and 625 deaths. The World Health Organization put the real spread at two to four times larger than confirmed counts show. The warning centers on Bunia in Ituri province, where about 80% of new confirmed patients are coming from outside known contact lists, a sign that transmission is still moving through the community rather than only through tracked chains.
Roughly 90% of all cases were concentrated in Ituri, especially Bunia, Rwampara, Mongbwalu and Nyakunde, and the virus had also reached North Kivu, South Kivu and Tshopo province. In Bunia, a city of about one million people, about one in two patients tested for Ebola was positive.
The outbreak was first confirmed in May and is unfolding in a region already shaped by humanitarian crisis, insecurity, high population movement and cross-border trade flows. WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counted it as the 17th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the virus was identified in 1976, and CDC counted it as the third largest Ebola outbreak on record. CDC put the 2018 North Kivu outbreak at about 235 days to pass 1,000 cases.
The Bundibugyo strain involved has no licensed vaccine or specific treatment, making contact tracing, isolation and community engagement the main tools left to slow spread. Daily testing capacity had climbed from 30 tests in Kinshasa to more than 2,000 across 10 decentralized laboratories in the affected provinces. More than 10,000 contacts were being monitored and treatment centers were at saturation point, while 102 confirmed cases, including 25 deaths, were among health and care workers as of 1 July.
The outbreak has already crossed borders. Uganda had 20 confirmed cases and two deaths, and all known Ugandan cases were diagnosed in Kampala with no community spread detected there. France also recorded one imported case linked to Congo. WHO opened a clinical trial on 2 July to test MBP134 and remdesivir.
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